How Julie Elven carved out a career singing in video games

Posted byby Dean Takahashi
May 3, 2023
Updated June 18, 2025
11 min

Julie Elven sings a lot of songs in video games without words. That’s called “vocalization,” where she uses her voice as a kind of musical instrument. And she has carved out a career singing as a vocalist in a number of award-winning video games.

She has contributed studio vocals as a soloist to major themes in Horizon Forbidden West, The Legend of Vox Machina, Horizon Zero Dawn, League of Legends, BBC Universe, PBS Nova, World of Warcraft: Legion, Hearthstone, Honor of Kings, Star Citizen, RuneScape, multiple Blizzard Entertainment projects, Tomb Raider – The Dark Angel album project, and more.

Unlock premium content and VIP community perks with GB M A X! Join now to enjoy our free and premium perks.

Join now →

Sign in to your account.

Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.